Chapter 42 – Rowan
ROWAN
“Tell me where your head is with this?” Sebastian asks as we reach a parlor on the main floor.
“She’s Samil’s sister,” I state, ire lacing my voice as I walk to the window and give him my back because my face is likely saying too much. “She’s an assassin.” And I fell for her. I shouldn’t feel betrayed, but I do.
“Do you believe she was going to follow through with the plot against me? That she wasn’t going to kill Signoria Batorini and this Antonia woman instead?”
I hitch up a shoulder. “The woman is skilled. I think at this point, that much is obvious. Her words could all be lies.”
“You don’t believe that,” he says, his voice dropping a notch.
“I don’t want to believe that. There’s a difference.”
“I believe her,” he throws out, and I turn, surprised by that.
My brother looks tired. Like he’s aged ten years overnight.
I hate that he’s here. I hate that this called him back to the palace when his focus should be on his wife and children.
He hasn’t even seen Phaedra, Sabrina, or Zayer to tell them the news.
This is fucked all around.
“It doesn’t matter, Sebastian. She was going to kill two people. Hard to glance over that. It’s not exactly something we can ignore.”
“No,” he agrees. “And it will be dealt with, though I wonder if that would be considered self-defense more than anything.”
“Self-defense?”
“You told me of the scars. I think we know where she got them.”
I release a weighted breath. “Trusting her is a trap.” Part of the curse, I don’t add. “Marcella went to the hotel willingly to meet her. She only fessed up to everything once we caught her, and we already know how skilled a liar she is.”
“Do you believe that or are you just angry with her?”
It’s a valid question.
“She knows about Marie,” I tell him, changing course since I can’t answer that.
“When I saw her in the hotel meeting with that woman, I thought it could be her. When I questioned her about Marie, she told me that she took Desta. I asked how she knew that, and she was surprised by my question. She asked how I did.”
Sebastian pales. “She doesn’t simply know about Marie. She knows Marie. Or at least someone who is very close to her and the situation.”
“Yes,” I agree.
“Did you ask her about Desta? If she knows about what happened to her?”
I shake my head, my hands going to my hips. “We didn’t get that far. But it seems she has other secrets we don’t yet know.”
“She loves you.”
I scoff out a bitter laugh and roll my eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
He nods, his stand firm. “It matters.”
I shift my weight and clench my shirt under my folded arms so I don’t pummel my fist through the window behind me.
“It’s not as though I can marry her. She doesn’t exist. She’s Samil’s half-sister.
She’s a goddamn assassin. I’d never be able to trust her, and frankly, she can say she loves me all she likes, but all of her possessions were in her backpack. She wasn’t coming back.”
There’s nothing left for us.
I’m glad she was leaving. I never would have had the strength to let her go. I would have fought heaven and hell to keep her. Chased her to the ends of the earth. Even now, the urge is compelling. But if I had come home and found her gone…
“She wants us to save this thirteen-year-old girl? How fucking sick is the Batorini family that both she and this girl don’t have last names or identities, and they not only beat young girls but also plan to kill them?”
“I think we already know the answer to that. You have scars from that family under your shirt.”
He nods, running a hand over the top of his head to the back of his neck. “I think Marcella would have killed the people who want to kill me, and after, we never would have seen her again.”
“I agree.”
He lifts his chin until our eyes lock. “It wouldn’t have stopped at me, you know.”
“How do you mean?” I ask, my brows forming a V.
“Signoria Batorini wouldn’t have stopped at my death. She would have continued. She would have eliminated my entire family.”
A chill runs up my spine. “Perhaps.” I can’t deny the plausibility of that.
“The girls are mine,” he says.
“I have no doubt that they are.” And I mean that. They’re his. Even as I ache for him that the question is there.
He releases a breath and stands. “The girls are mine,” he repeats. “I don’t need a blood test. I don’t need proof. They’re mine. I held them when they were first born. Hell, I remember the nights we conceived them because I didn’t exactly sleep with Nora often.”
Shit.
“I’m not surprised she was sleeping with him,” he continues.
“She would always tell me she couldn’t stand him, but she was gone a lot too, coming up with different locations and excuses for things she had to do as queen.
I didn’t challenge it because I didn’t care all that much.
I neglected her in a lot of ways. I don’t blame Samil for hating me, especially if she was pregnant with his child.
I’d hate me too. I’d want me dead. If it were Bellamy, I don’t know what I would have done if she belonged to another man. ”
“Love breeds madness. I have firsthand knowledge of that now, but I didn’t before.”
“Yes, it does. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had known about the affair, and I can’t change the past. Nora made her choices, and Samil made his.
He took Bellamy with the intention of killing her, and for that reason alone, I will never regret his death.
But it seems as though, at least according to Marcella, that accidentally killing Nora and his baby broke him, and after nearly losing my wife and children, I can’t begin to imagine that sort of agony. ”
I release a breath, my head bowing.
The door slams open before I can say anything, and Gabe is there. “She’s escaped,” he announces. “I just got a notification that Marcella worked her way out of the cell, knocked the guard unconscious, took his gun, stole a car, and fled the palace.”
“What?” startles past my lips.
But Sebastian isn’t surprised. He simply checks his watch.
“That was faster than I thought it would be. She’s very good, your Marcella.
” He meets my eyes. “She didn’t come after me.
She stole a gun and left.” He walks over to me and clasps my shoulder.
“If you go after her, keep that in mind. I’m going to kiss my children, tell them about their new brother and sister, then return to my wife.
Keep me updated and keep yourself safe above all else. ”
With that, he leaves, and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe he knew this would happen and allowed it. Now that I think about it, we didn’t have anyone watching the cameras and only one young guard on her cell. This was intentional.
I look at Gabe. “Let’s go.”
“Your Highness—”
“It’s not up for negotiation. I’m going.
” Because I have to save her. I have to make sure she’s okay.
I will take down Signoria Batorini or anyone else who hurt my girl, but I will fucking make sure she’s okay, and when this is all over, I’ll hold her captive in my arms and make her tell me all her secrets, and we’ll see where we come out.
Except now there’s a man on my right holding a gun to my temple.
This wasn’t the most well-thought-out plan, and that seems to be how we do things lately.
Unwisely. Rushing into a situation and praying it all goes to plan.
That’s how we did it with Samil, that’s how we did it with Charlotte, and now this. Fuck!
“Marcella, what is this?” the man with the gun asks. His fucking hand is shaking, which isn’t what you want when you’re the one whose head it’s pointed at.
Marcella doesn’t look scared. She looks furious.
“Cristo, what are you doing?” she hisses under her breath, keeping her voice low. “This is the prince. Lower your weapon. I brought him here.”
Cristo’s eyes widen before he looks at Gabe, me, then back at her. “No.”
“Sì,” she persists, speaking in Italian with him. “Come on, Cristo. You know me. They’ve been digging into me. I lured them here so we could torture secrets out of them, and after, I was going to kill them. But if you shoot him, we won’t get any of those secrets we so desperately need.”
The man stands still, except for his shaky goddamn hand. “You brought them here for this?” He’s incredulous because it doesn’t exactly make a ton of sense.
She scoffs and rolls her eyes indignantly, working to sell it. “Yes. Of course I did. How many jobs have you been my driver to? You know how I do things.”
I don’t know how she does things. Jobs? What jobs? What the actual fuck is going on and who is this woman?
“I kill everyone. Don’t I? No loose ends. No trails.”
Jesus. Is that true?
“I know,” he agrees, and hell. I can’t begin to wrap my head around this. She kills people? I mean, Gabe called her an assassin, but I thought of that more as a term, not a fact.
She holds up her knife but fishes out her gun from her back waistband. “Let me finish it. It’s my right after what they did to Samil.”
The man gives her a very long look, and she must see something in his eyes because I hear him intake a sharp breath a second before his face is blown out the back of his skull.
Blood and bone and God only knows what else are sprayed across my face and side, and I collapse to the floor from the force of everything, unable to breathe, unable to fucking think.
That bullet was so close to my face I felt the goddamn air displace and sweep along my cheek from it. I wipe my face with the sleeve of my shirt, but it doesn’t matter. It’s everywhere. My eyes clear, and Marcella is holding a gun, a pissed-off scowl on her face.
She just blew the guy’s face off because he had a gun to my head and was about to kill me with it. Or was about to out her. I honestly don’t know what she’s doing or what she’s capable of or how she’s even thinking of me in this situation.
“Hide your weapons,” she hisses hastily. “Hands behind your backs, and don’t argue with what I say. Do it now! Signoria!” she cries out.
I get to my feet, but before I can go to her, the woman I saw this morning from the hotel appears, and instinctively, I put my arms behind my back. Gabe does the same.
Marcella sighs dramatically and lowers her gun. “Fucking asshole,” she gripes.
“Marcella? What on earth? What is this?” The woman waves a disgusted hand toward the dead man before her eyes widen as she takes both Gabe and me in.
Marcella faces the woman. “The king is dead,” she announces without preamble. “And can you instruct your henchmen in the future not to point guns first and ask questions later? It got his head blown off.”
She brushes back her long bangs from her face with her gun hand. The knife is still open in her other hand, down at her side.
The older woman is completely perplexed.
“What is happening? What are you doing here, and why is Cristo dead?”
Marcella scowls. “I killed the king. He caught on to me the moment I returned to the palace, and I slit his throat. The prince and his man chased me out of the palace, and I took them down, used their zip ties to bind their wrists behind their backs, and brought them here for us to dispose of after we torture secrets out of them. Then fucking Cristo had to point a gun at me and go to shoot.”
Cristo has a gun in his hand, and since he’s dead on the floor, he’s got no argument.
“Marcella, how did you know we were here?”
“Antonia,” she replies as if the answer should be obvious.
“Antonia?” the lady parrots, incredulity in her tone.
“I called her and told her what happened. She told me to come here to regroup and await further instruction.”
The woman eyes both of us with our hands behind our backs. “You brought them here?”
“To kill them. I had no choice. Believe me, it wasn’t my first option.”
Fuck, is she deadpan. Shit. I believe her, and it’s rattling me.
“Did anyone else follow you?”
She shakes her head. “No. It was only them.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Gabe snarls.
Marcella snorts a laugh. “Honey, it’s done. No one is coming for you. There is no rescue.”
“But you killed my driver?” The woman is all but ignoring us.
Marcella pans a hand at the man on the ground. “Signoria, he’s had it coming for a long time, and we both know it. But he pointed a gun at me and went to shoot. So yes, I killed him.”
Signoria doesn’t look upset, just annoyed. “That’s a ten-thousand-euro rug he’s bleeding all over.”
Marcella curtsies, just as she always did for us. “My apologies, Signoria.”
The woman huffs. “And the king’s computer?”
Marcella bows slightly. “That’s where he caught me. I was uploading to his computer when he entered. He came after me, and I sliced his throat.”
She hisses something under her breath. “But it’s done?”
Marcella nods. Then smiles gleefully. “It’s done. I was able to get the file on his computer, and the virus will upload tonight at midnight. More importantly, the king is dead.”
“Good. Excellent. Bring them in here and tie them to the chairs. Where is Antonia?”
“She said she’s on her way back, but her phone cut off on me. She had bad service,” she explains.
“Fine. But now you have a prince to kill, and I’d like to get it done.”